16 July 2015

Firms with over 250 employees will be required to publish the average pay of their male and female employees.

Women in the UK are, on average, paid around 20 percent less than men. This is something David Cameron vowed to end “in a generation”. And although the gender pay gap has narrowed in recent years, analysis reveals this is because male wages have fallen, rather than womens’ wages going up. The problem is as bad as ever.

Ideally, the regulations will encourage companies to investigate the causes of their gender pay gap, and look in to methods of reducing it. Cameron said the legislation; “will cast sunlight on the discrepancies and create the pressure we need for change, driving women’s wages up.

It is a welcome step, but transparency will not solve the gender pay gap, nor the causes of it. While the Tories are packaging the new legislation as radical, forcing companies to be honest about their pay inequality is not the same thing as forcing them to do anything about it.

The regulations will be laid down in early 2016, but the government has proposed delaying them, “to give businesses an opportunity to prepare for implementation”.

Obviously, if the Tories truly cared about pay inequality they wouldn’t be intent on destroying the most effective means of reducing it – the trade union movement.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady commented; “Publishing information on gender pay gaps is a good start. But it is just that – a start. Employers need to look at why those differences still exist and why women are being held back or getting stuck in low-paid, part-time work. They need to take action now to make sure another generation of women don’t suffer this pay penalty.

“It’s shocking the UK is so far down the gender pay gap league some 40 years after the Equal Pay Act. Closing this gap is essential to ensure women achieve their full potential at work and to improve our productivity as a nation.”